Betwixt two friends
by BritishAlien
Summary: When Sarah reveals a deep seated fear, the only one to hold her hand is the Doctor, just as she had done for him all those times. Another tribute to the sadly missed Elisabeth Sladen xxx  Decided to change the title, seems more appropriate


Hello again. Wow, three SJ stories written in as many days. All of course, written in the shadow of the sad news of Elisabeth's passing. After I heard of her death, I began watching a few of the stories that she appeared in. Everything from Time Warrior to Hand of Fear. And there is such diversity between the two ends of her original tenure on the show. I realised looking at my other two stories about SJ that they have little diversity, relishing in the mystical (which I love writing and hope you guys like reading), but I wanted to write a story with the Doctor and SJ in the UNIT days, firstly to bring some of the joy back to this all to sombre occasion, what with the many fanfics concerning her actual death and also to remember some of the diversity that helped to place Sarah so high up in fandom's love and affection. Again, dedicated to the wonderful Elisabeth Sladen. Our Sarah Jane.

-x-x-x-

'I'm telling you Sarah, if the Brigadier gets me to write another report I'll…I'll…'

'Write the report.' Sarah interposed. He'd been rambling for the last hour or so. On their arrival back at UNIT headquarters, the Brigadier had been tirelessly encouraging the Doctor to finally write up his 'damned paperwork'. And now the Doctor set about cursing the needless bureaucracy that it imprinted upon everything it touched. 'We've been back for two days, and the Brig has been asking you to write these reports, you keep saying you'll refuse to write them, but when he pops his head around that door, you oblige, not wanting to seem rude. You don't want to let him down. Your problem is that you can't say no to good people. More tea?' Sarah asked as she got up to make herself another cup. The Doctor nodded. His wide eyed gaze staring down at his laboratory. Well not his really, his old self had called it near enough home for the past few years. This Doctor wanted to get away from the UNIT life, now that he could travel again; he wanted to leave that life behind. Not that it had been a bad time filled with bad memories; he just needed to move on in this life or he'd never leave. Sarah was standing in the corner, making the tea, pouring it in to their well-worn mugs, which to Sarah's knowledge, had never missed a day's usage. Well, not until they'd left the last time.

'Yes. Well next time I mean it. I'm not his to boss around anymore. I'm not condemned to this solitary world. I can go anywhere I please…'

'Then why don't you?' Sarah questioned quizzically as she placed the steaming mug of tea into the Doctor's open hands.

'Well, it's not that simple. Memories perhaps. Familiar ties of duty. I'm bound to the Brigadier. We've known one another a long time. Lifetimes, in fact.' The Doctor sipped slowly at his tea. Confirming his own want to leave and be free of the binding force that UNIT had been in his life and yet contradicting himself, relaying memories of good times that the humble military group had given him in his long life. 'You don't just forget things like that. Even through change.'

'Change… Do you want it to mean the end? Does it always have to?' Sarah's eyes glistened, being back at the UNIT base had brought memories flooding back into her mind. Memories that she could not help but resent.

'Why this melancholy? Are you afraid, Sarah?' The Doctor's almost whimsical smile made her question seem like it should have been that of a child's. His childish gleam made everything seem less jagged and yet this question meant something to her. Right here. Right now.

'A little. I just. Seeing you die after all we'd been through. Waiting for you to return and when you finally did, you left us again, it was difficult, messy...Death shouldn't be like that. It should be kind. It should hurt because otherwise what can we learn from it, but it should never seem to be deserved.' Sarah's words lingered in the silent laboratory. The Doctor's death had been hard on everybody, but especially Sarah. She'd held his hand. She'd opened up her heart and wept for her lonely traveller. She didn't want that to happen to her.

Without noticing him even moving, Sarah was suddenly aware of the Doctor's presence, very close to her. He'd somehow moved from the other side of the room over to where she sat and placed his hand on hers.

'You have nothing to fear, Sarah.' Her eyes wandered around the room, knowing that inevitably they would meet the shining brightness of the Doctor's.

'Do you promise?'

'I promise on all my lives. You have nothing to be frightened of. If anything death is not an ending, but a new beginning. A doorway to another kind of reality. We just have to be ready to open that door. That's the difficult bit. And Sarah, I can guarantee that you will be more than ready when that time comes. You're Sarah Jane. Nobody else could be more prepared. But your time is not yet. You have nothing to fear. And whilst I live and breathe I shall not allow hurt to come to you. The end of my last life may have been uncomfortable, but I promise that I shall never let it darken your door again. No more staying still. Come on.' And he grabbed her hand, pulled her from the workbench where she had been sitting, listening intently to his speech, and dragged her to the TARDIS door. Sarah's worry had disappeared. The Doctor had this knack of turning a situation on its head. And here he had made Sarah's longings for reconciliation vanish as if in a cloud of smoke, to be replaced by intrigue and joy. The TARDIS door shut behind them and the blue box dissolved in to thin air. Off on another adventure.

Along the corridors of the UNIT base rushed a man. A man on a mission. A man trying to bring some uniformity to his section of the armed forces. Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart bounded down the corridors leading to the Doctor's laboratory, carrying armfuls of loose sheets of paper for the Doctor to inscribe with his versions of recent events. Finally, the Brigadier would be able to get some paperwork done. Pen pushing was his least favourite part of military service, but it had to be done. He burst in to the laboratory, ready for the bureaucracy to begin… Only to find no sign of the unreliable Time Lord and his avuncular companion. And more worryingly no sign of the TARDIS.

'Oh well, it shall be done another time...I hope.' The Brigadier seemed to murmur to nobody in particular. He turned his head to the ceiling as if someone was listening, and even though he would never know; someone that night _was_ listening. 'Best wishes, Doctor and to you Miss Smith. Keep fighting on. Never to be forgotten.'

-x-x-x-

Oh and just to let you know, that person who was listening, was YOU. The reader. The ever present guest into the glorious world that these characters occupy. Without you these characters will never be remembered. Without you they have no audience or purpose. Please, never forget or we'll lose these beautiful characters forever. Thank you for reading x


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